About This Gigapan

Poppi Castle in Il Casentino, Tuscany, Italy
July 22, 2009
With assistance from my cousin Marco Goretti
Although I was born in the United States, my family has a long history amid the Tuscan hills of Italy. To the east of Florence running south to Arezzo is a wonderful valley where the Arno River finds it source and tranquility reigns. It was in this valley many centuries ago that the Conti Guidi ruled from a series of hilltop castles. They were a ruthless group and the peasants suffered tremendously. In the 1200s a great battle took place between Florence and Arezzo for dominance of the region. That battle, the Battle of Campaldino, determined the fate of the two cities for centuries to come. Florence went on to become the ‘flower of the Renaissance,’ while Arezzo fell from grace. The poet Dante put much of this history and more than a dozen of the central characters of this drama in his Divine Comedy.
Poppi Castle was the most important of all the castles in Il Casentino and it still stands on its perch overlooking the valley. It is magnificent to look at and to look from. If it looks familiar, it is because the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence is patterned after it.